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Effects of synthetic oil nanofluids and absorber geometries on the exergetic performance of the parabolic trough collector
Author(s) -
Okonkwo Eric C.,
Abid Muhammad,
Ratlamwala Tahir A.H.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.4099
Subject(s) - parabolic trough , exergy , nanofluid , tube (container) , mechanical engineering , engineering , nuclear engineering , mechanics , solar energy , process engineering , heat transfer , electrical engineering , physics
Summary The parabolic trough collector is 1 of the most deployed solar concentrating collectors in the world. In this research, the commercially available LS‐2 collector has been modeled using the engineering equation solver. The developed model is validated using the experimental results of the Sandia National Laboratory, LS‐2 collector test. The study presents a comparison of the exergetic performance of 4 different absorber tube geometry configurations: conventional absorber tube, longitudinal finned tube, absorber tube with twisted tape insert, and converging‐diverging absorber tube. The system is analyzed to observe the nature of exergy losses and exergy destruction for the various design configurations with the use of Therminol VP‐1 and Al 2 O 3 ‐Therminol VP‐1 nanofluids. The results show that the biggest cause of reduced useful work is because of the destructed exergy from the sun to the absorber. While the optical errors account for a higher percentage of exergy losses. The converging‐diverging absorber geometry produced the best exergetic enhancement of 0.65% with the use of Therminol VP‐1 and 0.73% with the use of Al 2 O 3 /Therminol VP‐1 nanofluid.